March 25, 2024 

Today's Reading: Luke 1:26-38

Daily Lectionary: Exodus 9:1-28, Lamentations 1:1-22, Hebrews 2:1-18

And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.  And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.” (Luke 1:30-31)

In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.  Since the Fall our sinful nature can’t comprehend a God who does things the way in which He does.  We would think for Him to work in only high and mighty ways above us and apart from us, but our Lord isn’t who we think He is.  And so today we hear about a God who doesn’t deem Himself so high and mighty above us as to leave us in our fallen flesh.  But instead, we have a God who deemed us worthy enough that He would become one of us and save us from our fallenness, not to save us from our humanness.

And He does so even as a little embryo floating down fallopian tubes, even as a soiling-himself infant in a cattle stall, even as a stumbling toddler and a pubescent teenager and twenty-something carpenter and a thirty year old dead man on a cross.  He does this as He bursts out of the tomb, not leaving the shell of His humanity in the grave to rot, but raising it up in perfection while still bearing the marks of the cross so that we might forever know that the death of this God-man means the life of mankind.  And even to this day He has done this by assuming our human nature up into the heavens, seated at the right hand of God giving us the very thing that we always desired, but were too shortsighted and ignorant to understand.  For we were always going to reign until eternity with Him; not by us becoming like Him, but by Him becoming like us.

Is there any better way to prepare ourselves for the coming Holy Week; to prepare ourselves for the institution of a Supper of the flesh and blood of Jesus; to prepare ourselves for a dark Good Friday when the Son of God hangs derelict on a tree with human hands and feet nailed and human blood flowing mingled down; to prepare ourselves for the empty tomb and the risen Jesus in the flesh; is there any better way for us to prepare for all of that than by us celebrating today the Annunciation and human conception of our God?  …  If there is, I know not of it. In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.

Why lies He in such mean estate Where ox and ass are feeding?  Good Christians, fear; for sinners here The silent Word is pleading.  Nail, spear, shall pierce Him through, The cross be borne for me, for you; Hail, hail the Word made flesh, The babe, the son of Mary! (LSB 370:2)

- Pastor Eli Lietzau is pastor of Wheat Ridge Evangelical Lutheran Church in Wheat Ridge, Colorado.

Audio Reflections Speaker: Pastor Jonathan Lackey is the pastor at Grace Lutheran Church, Vine Grove, Ky.

Unforgivable? Unforgiveness is a prison—mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. In a world full of turmoil, many use forgiveness as a coping mechanism without understanding what true forgiveness is. Learn what forgiveness from Christ looks like, and how He forgives His people.